Teen Konstas’s in Ponting territory with back to back 100s.

The NSW teenager is youngest since Ricky Ponting to score back to back Shield centuries.

He’s done it again, and his short cricket history suggests that is just what he does.

Sam Konstas, NSW’s 19-year-old opener, became the youngest player since Ricky Ponting 1992/93 to score back to back Sheffield Shield centuries on Thursday, and the youngest NSW player to do it since Archie Jackson in 1927/28.

Batting for the Blues in the first game of the summer, the preternaturally calm right hander hit Ben Manenti over deep mid-wicket to bring up the milestone as the home side accelerated toward a declaration late on day three.

It is only appropriate too that it is a player of Ponting’s calibre whose record he has challenged. Some are just a level above the competition and Konstas, like a Michael Clarke, or Will Pucovski, or Phil Hughes is that.

He makes batting look easy and apparently it is when you are Sam Konstas.

Sifting through his history you find him scoring hundred after hundred at every level of the game. Much as those mentioned above did. At 10 he got one for St George. There was a eight-day period in the Under 16 Green Shield where he peeled off four in a row. There was a junior carnival where Ponting did something similar, forcing the organisers to change the rules lest another Ponting come along.

Konstas notched up another recently for Sutherland and one for the Australian Under 19s in January.

After the game he said he does not get intimidated moving up the ranks, saying he just “loves the challenge”.

Shane Watson was on the phone when he brought up the century. Watto first crossed paths with him when he was 14 or 15 and took him under his generous wing. He cites Watson as a mentor and appears to have soaked up the former player’s lessons about the mental side of the game.   He never seems flustered or distracted, setting himself up the same way over and over.

We’ll get Shane on Cricket Et Al the podcast to give us a little more in coming weeks.

Driving out to Cricket Central this week has proved to be a rewarding experience. You need to see players like this in the flesh. Hear the praise in person.

One thing everybody who has encountered Konstas on his brief journey is that he is a young man who was desperate to learn and desperate to get better. One who would do whatever it took to get to be the complete batter.

They reckon when he was told he would bat at number three last summer in his debut Shield match he was not overwhelmed by slotting in at the top of the order, but asked why he wasn’t opening.

Konstas’s technique is simple, elegant and appears water-tight. Talking to the senior NSW players they say you can’t get him out in the nets, his pads are impossible to hit. He has balance and he incredible powers of concentration.

Stuart Clark stuck his head in during the day and added to the chorus of cricket types who have seen him coming up and been seriously impressed. The former Australian quick remembered a very young Konstas facing a very fast Billy Stanlake without flinching. He made runs and reported later that the challenge was a bit of fun.

Konstas batted 10 hours for his 257 runs, facing 241 balls in the first innings and 225 in the second. He went up the gears and down them. It was a good batting wicket, but one that offered something to the bowlers. When he was in his 80s in the second innings, and NSW was trying to get a move on, he refused to be frustrated when South Australia packed the off side and bowled in the outer channel.

Watching from the boundary he seemed to have more time at the crease than others out there. His scores of 152 and 105 in this game were considerably more than any other Blues players _ Josh Philippe’s 56 in the first innings the next highest score.

Alex Carey’s 90 for South Australia was the best effort for the visitors in their first innings.

Yes, he was dropped by Carey before he got off the mark in the second dig and when the new ball was flying, but you got the feeling the cricket gods are with this one. Fickle they are and their minds may yet change, we have seen others start with similar promise but struggle to fulfil it, but for the moment it is all blue sky.

(Carey also missed a stumping chance from Konstas in the first innings but he was on 140 at the time.)

When fielding the Blues put him under the lid and made him field at short leg when the spinners operate. It is the task generally assigned the youngest player in the team. One of the Test quicks not playing in that game quipped that the youngster looks like Dicky Knee.

Maybe I’m over reaching for positives here, but the catch he took there in the first innings really was impressive. Henry Hunt’s sweep came right off the middle of the bat but was stopped nonchalantly by the teen before it cannoned into his chest.

He celebrated the catch as mildly as he celebrated bringing up his 100, 150 and second 100 in the game.

NSW declared late on day three of the match with a 388 run lead and picked up the wicket of opener Conor McInerney before stumps.

NSW Cricket’s resident historian and author of the excellent 150 Years of NSW First Class Cricket _ A Chronology passed on these statistics:

Century In Each Innings for NSW.

- 18th occasion on which the feat has been performed. Performed by 16 players (Rick McCosker and Mark Taylor did it twice)

- The first was Sunny Jim Mackay vs. South Australia (105 + 102 not out) in 1905/06 on the Sydney Cricket Ground.

- The most recent is Daniel Hughes vs. South Australia (103 + 136) in 2019/20 on Bankstown Oval.

- Sam is 19 years 8 days of age. The youngest to do it, is Archie Jackson vs. South Australia (131 + 122) in 1927/28 on SCG. He was 18years 126 days.

- Arthur Morris did it vs. Queensland (148 + 111) in a non-Shield match in 1940/41 on the SCG. It was his first-class debut. He was 18 years 343 days.

The first occasion caused some controversy:

New South Wales needed 177 in its second innings to defeat South Australia.Mackay and Victor Trumper 35 (33 minutes, 3 fours) opened with 60. Mackay was 47* when the hundred came up after 59 minutes. He reached his half-century in 63 minutes and was 70* with only another 34 needed when his partner, Monty Noble, began to refuse runs from his own strokes, and even potential leg byes, in an attempt to allow Mackay to reach his century. This caused great consternation to the South Australian captain, Joe Darling. Two no balls left Mackay with 21 to get out of 23, and when Noble “refused to budge for a glance with which he sent the ball almost to the boundary, Darling protested that the procedure was making a farce of the game, and if it continued he might request his bowlers to send down wides which would defeat Noble’s object”. Mackay defused the situation by hitting three fours in the next over, from John Reedman, taking his score to 102* (114 minutes, 11 fours) and New South Wales to 1-177 and victory. He became the first to score a century in each innings of a Shield match. He added 117 with Noble (37*) for the unfinished 2nd wicket.